1. Field
The present invention generally relates to multi-media program recording, and more specifically to recording of the audio-only segment of a multi-media program.
2. Background
Digital video recorders (DVRs), personal video recorders (PVRs), DVD players, set-top boxes (STBs), televisions and other similar consumer electronic (CE) devices, provide recording and/or playback of audio/video (A/V) contents. The CE devices, which have a recording feature, record both audio and video mostly in multiplexed form. At times, user may wish to record only the audio segment(s) of the A/V contents, which may be a favorite song, section of a sound track of a movie, news, weather information, stock quotes or other desired audio information of a particular A/V stream. This audio-only recording of A/V contents can be provided as an additional feature in the existing CE devices or can be realized as a separate device receiving an A/V signal. The device could be called a digital audio recorder (DAR), personal audio recorder (PAR), and the like.
Audio-only recording lets the users record the audio segment(s) of an incoming A/V stream. The A/V stream may originate from a number of sources including, for example, analog or digital TV broadcast, movies on DVDs or video CD discs, video-on-demand sources and other similar A/V sources. Audio-only recording feature is useful and desirable since it lets user record audio segment(s) of their liking without being bothered about the video portion. Furthermore, the requirement for storage space is much less in audio-only cases and, hence, removable media with limited storage capacity like memory sticks, compact flash and other similar devices are ideal for storing and carrying the recorded audio contents.
There does not seem to be any conventional mechanism which allows audio segment(s) to be recorded from an A/V stream. Hence, it would be desirable to provide methods and systems that are capable of providing audio-only recording of A/V contents being played.